RAQA, Syria: Bashar Hammoud thought he knew his native Raqa like the back of his hand, but a months-long offensive against the IS group has scarred the Syrian city so badly he can barely recognise it.
Hammoud, a 26-year-old member of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, was floored when he entered the battered northeastern district of Al Rumeilah on Monday for the first time in years. “I used to come here a lot because my uncles lived here and the college of literature, where I studied, was here,” the bony member of the SDF’s media office said.
“I don’t even know where we are. If I got out of the car now, I wouldn’t know how to go back. It’s all gone.
I know we’re in Al Rumeilah — but where in Al Rumeilah, I don’t know,” he says.
The district’s two-storey homes have been smashed to the ground by bombardment.
Fighters from the US-backed SDF — which broke into Raqa in June after spending months encircling the city — are roaming the rubble-littered streets, but no civilians are in sight.
When a pair of air strikes send consecutive booms echoing across Al Rumeilah, Hammoud furrows his brows.
His family home lies in Al Maarri, an IS-held district about 500 metres to the west, and he has not seen it since fleeing Raqa in December 2014.
“Standing or destroyed, my only wish now is to see my home, but I know that that neighbourhood hasn’t been liberated yet,” he says.
“My comrades told me hopefully today, it will be liberated. If my house is gone, it’ll be a shock to me.”
More than three years after IS declared a self-styled “caliphate” across swathes of Syria and Iraq, the SDF’s Arab and Kurdish fighters hold around 90 per cent of its one-time de facto Syrian capital Raqa.
The Raqa natives among them say it has been dizzying to see neighbourhoods they had known for years being called different names by people who lived under IS’s iron fist.
An area called Al Hukumah — “government” — has become known as Al Hikmeh, or “wisdom.” The Al Bassel Mosque, named after President Bashar al Assad’s older brother, was renamed Al Nur.
And most infamously, the Al Naim roundabout where IS carried out beheadings and crucifixions was renamed “Al Jaheem” — the Roundabout of Hell.
At the eastern entrance to the city, Hammoud points to two large triangular flags hanging from a metal frame: one belonging to the SDF, and the other to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
“There used to be a big black flag there with the phrase everyone knows — ‘the IS in Iraq and Syria.’ Now look at the SDF flag. Colours are coming back to Raqa,” Hammoud says.
Still, the once-bustling neighbourhood just ahead is jarring for him: “I was shocked when I came here. The shops are empty. It’s like we went back 100 years.”
Farther along the route lies Al Meshleb, the first district that SDF fighters entered in June — and the neighbourhood where Fahed al Meshlebi grew up.
At the time, Meshlebi was living in a displacement camp north of Raqa and decided to join the SDF’s battle against IS. — Reuters
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
